


Unbinding

by talesofsymphoniac



Category: The Death Gate Cycle - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28992417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talesofsymphoniac/pseuds/talesofsymphoniac
Summary: Air heaves into Bane's lungs, his heart stuttering frantically to find a new rhythm. Every inch of his body aches as it remembers how to be alive, and when he is done choking and coughing and his hearing and vision return to him, he looks up.Iridal’s shoulders are shaking, and she has turned her back to him.[Bane lives.]
Relationships: Bane & Alfred Montbank
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Unbinding

Bane can’t wait for King Stephen to die.

The thought that he might feel otherwise about the death of the man who had been known as his father has never once crossed his mind. Bane hates King Stephen, and always has. King Stephen, his father, loathes him in equal measure. Bane doesn’t hold that against him: Bane has never had a father who did not.

* * *

Despite all of Bane’s machinations, Hugh fumbles the murder of King Stephen. And when Bane attempts to take the matter into his own small hands, his body is taken: seized by powerful magic that lifts him into the air, crushes his ribcage, forces the air from his lungs.

He looks into iridescent eyes, shimmering with tears that would have enraged him if he could feel any emotion other than fear.

His heart is not beating. The magic's grasp is merciless. Bane will die, and his mother will kill him: the same mother who had claimed to love him, who had crossed an enemy nation on the slim chance of bringing him home. Now she's seen that he is not the dewy-eyed, rosy-cheeked son she once dreamed of loving, but a snake, vicious and cunning, and she hates him, and she cannot use him, and so she will kill him.

Bane’s vision fades. He can’t move, even to turn away from his murderess. Over her left shoulder is a slight fluttering: a butterfly, opalescent, bright in his eye even as all else turns fuzzy. The last thing he sees is the white shape landing on Iridal's murky shadow.

And then the magic releases its chokehold. Air heaves into his lungs, his heart stuttering frantically to find a new rhythm. Every inch of Bane’s body aches as it remembers how to be alive, and when he is done choking and coughing and his hearing and vision return to him, he looks up. 

Iridal’s shoulders are shaking, and she has turned her back to him.

* * *

There do remain ways to subdue mysteriarchs, although they have been lost to the likes of Trian. Iridal has known them by heart for years, even if she has never dared to use them.

Bane, of course, has grown more powerful than Iridal knows, having been taught the most basic of Patryn rune magic. Escaping his bonds would be simple enough. But royal guards watch him closely, and Bane knows that even with magic, he would not live to enjoy his freedom for very long.

No one knows quite what to do with him. The King and Queen would probably love to have him killed, but they don’t dare risk straining their alliance with Iridal and, by extension, the rest of the mysteriarchs.

But not even Iridal wants him. She visits him each morning and evening and speaks to him in a gentle, trembling voice. Bane, for his part, screams, and whimpers, and demands, and pleas. He makes promises upon promises to his mother: how good he will be, how it is time for them to be together at last. She wants to believe him, and that had been enough to convince her, once upon a time. Bane waits impatiently for her to give in.

But every time, lridal leaves him, tears in both their eyes. Again and again, and each time Bane sits with his throat hoarse and his cheeks sticky with dried tears and reminds himself that the promises were all lies, anyway.

And then, one day, it’s not Iridal who visits, but Hugh the Hand.

* * *

Bane refuses to free Hugh from his oath. Of course he does. Hugh is desperate, and that gives Bane a much-needed opportunity.

Given enough time, Bane expects his Grandfather to arrive and rescue him. It is not a comforting thought. Spending the rest of his life shackled in this tiny dungeon cell would be infinitely preferable to Xar’s displeasure.

No, he must find a way to reunite with Xar of his own power. So Bane listens to Hugh and thinks.

“You don’t have to kill Haplo,” he finally says, disappointed when not even the faintest relief lights Hugh’s eyes. The man knows him too well, Bane supposes. "But,” he continues, “you have to bring me to him, instead."

Hugh looks at him, expression inscrutable, and turns to leave without another word. The heavy door echoes ominously through the cell.

Bane grins. He'll be back.

* * *

He is, one week later.

Bane is still tied up, carried and loaded into a dragonship like so much cargo. He huffs and puffs at this treatment, but it's mostly for show: escape is within sight.

He attempts it, early the next morning, reciting Patryn words his Grandfather taught him under his breath. He has just enough time to grin at his own cleverness before Hugh is on him, knife drawn. And just before Bane can utter another word to stop him in his tracks, the knife is a heavy metal weight at the end of a chain. It launches itself at him and coils around him, pinning his arms against his sides.

Bane thrashes, panicking at the feeling of magic constricting him again, crushing. It takes a moment to realize he is not about to die. 

Tears brimming in his eyes, Bane forces his breath to settle. He glares murderously at Hugh the Hand, who smiles blithely and sticks his pipe back in his mouth: the picture of a man who will complete his mission, whether Bane wants him to or not.

* * *

It's for the best. Bane decides, as the options available to him vanish rapidly. Even with his new  abilities, he can't fly a dragonship his own. He could jump ship and float back down to Drevlin again, but Hugh would likely hunt him down before he could accomplish anything, anyway.

And really, what more can he do in Arianus? It's too late to kill Stephen. The elves have no use for him anymore, either. On Arianus, he will have to hide from all of them, all while being hunted by a professional assassin who cannot die.

His only chance is to get back to Grandfather. And for that, there is nothing to do but stay put.

* * *

Hugh announces himself plainly when he lands, asking the Gegs for Haplo. The Patryn comes, sure enough, looking tired and beaten and overall dreadful enough to cheer Bane up, just a little.

Haplo and Hugh talk for a while. It's all boring to Bane, but he listens well enough to know that Haplo knows something about Hugh's condition. Haplo requests the assassin’s aid in bringing Bane to his ship, where he will explain what he knows of the curse.

From this, Bane gathers that fulfilling this oath alone will not be enough to free Hugh, after all. Delightful, he thinks. Things are looking up. Hugh will leave with that knife, and Bane will return to the Nexus. Haplo, of course, will be dead, just as soon as Bane can engineer it.

Then a woman covered in Patryn tattoos arrives to kill Haplo, and Bane’s plan-- as well as the ship-- crashes around his ears.

* * *

Alfred.

At first, he thinks it’s another nightmare. Another taunt, another person who betrayed him, left him, even as he claimed to care.  _ A liar _ , Xar’s voice reminds him coldly.  _ An enemy. _

Except he doesn’t go away. “Your Highness,” he says, and Bane shrieks, thrashes as well as he can, as disoriented as he is. He demands to be let go. Alfred looks at him, harried, the way he always used to look when Bane would bully him into letting him play outside in the rain. He bites his lip, like he did when he knew obeying Bane’s orders would earn him a punishment, later. His shoulders droop, and he smiles sadly, and every last bit of it is exactly the same, and Bane wants to scream through the lump rising in his throat.

Alfred says: “Of course. Don’t get lost.”

Bane hates him. He bolts, hardly caring where he ends up as long as it’s  _ away.  _ He races through identical white hallways, twisting and turning without any obvious rhyme or reason.

After ten minutes or so of this, he’s calmed enough to think to wonder where this place is, how he came to be there, how  _ Alfred  _ was here as well. But thinking of Alfred upsets him all over again, and he pushes on through the halls. 

An hour passes. He has gotten nowhere. Probably there is no way out. Probably Alfred had known that when he let Bane run. Tired and hungry and angry, Bane huffs, plopping down to a seat in the middle of the deserted hallway. His lip trembles, and he wipes angrily at his eyes.

* * *

For the second time that day, Bane is woken by Alfred. This time, he’s with Hugh the Hand and Haplo and even the woman who tried to kill them. Haplo meets Bane’s eyes, and it’s clear that Haplo has been told exactly what fate Bane had intended for him.

Immune to Bane’s glare, Alfred speaks to him plainly. Bane learns that they’re in a place called the Vortex, and that there is a way out: through the Labyrinth. They intend to leave that way, and Alfred wants Bane to join them.

Bane stands, crossing his arms and turning his nose up imperiously. “I don’t trust you. Why should I believe a word you say? You’re trying to trick me again, I know it. I won’t go!”

“Your funeral,” Hugh says. Haplo steps forward, about to speak, but a brief look from Alfred stops him. Bane’s old chamberlain looks at him seriously, and Bane furrows his brows with extreme petulance.

“I can’t force you, Your Highness,” Alfred says, his voice full of concern, and Bane knows he’s lying. “You will be safe here for as long as you wish to stay. But you will be alone. And if you leave, you will be on your own in the Labyrinth.”

Bane knows about the Labyrinth. That was a lesson impressed upon him very, very clearly by his Grandfather.

“Stay with me, then,” he demands. “That way I won’t be alone. You can take care of me, here.”

He doesn’t know why he says it. He hates Alfred almost as much as he hates this place with its endless white walls. The last thing he wants is to be alone here with Alfred. But Alfred looks at him, and his eyes are sad, like Iridal’s eyes had been sad. “I’m afraid I can’t, Your Highness,” he says, and Bane’s heart cracks just a little more, and maybe that’s why he’d said it, after all.

He plops back to the floor, turning his whole body away from the grown-ups. “I’m not a prince anymore,” he sniffs, “and you aren’t my servant. Go away, then, Alfred. I don’t need you, and I don’t want you here.”

“Come with us,” Alfred insists. “I’m not your servant anymore, it’s true. But I still want to keep you safe. You don’t really want to stay here, do you?” Bane says nothing. Alfred waits a moment, then sighs deeply. “It does sound like a very boring way to spend the rest of one’s life,” he says softly. 

Bane thinks about it: thinks about being the ruler of this strange little place called the Vortex. No one to betray him or use him. He looks up at the vast expanse of white surrounding him on all sides. No one at all but him for the rest of his life.

Bane purses his lips. He glances back to Alfred, unwilling to say what he is thinking. 

Sensing Bane’s stubbornness falter, Alfred raises an eyebrow. “Do you know,” he says, with a certainty that Alfred the chamberlain had rarely had, “I think Haplo’s dog would miss you very terribly, if you stayed here.” 

* * *

Bane does not like the Labyrinth, and he does not like his traveling companions. Still, he doesn’t pout, or scream, or throw a tantrum. He pushes through without any complaint, like a proper adventurer. It’s terribly exciting, when he thinks about it like that; it reminds him a little of that first outing with Alfred and Hugh on Arianus, when everything was new and just dangerous enough to be interesting. He follows closely behind, learning what there is to know as the Patryns help guide them.

Bane is a reasonably athletic child, and one of the pieces of rune magic he knows is a simple spell to improve his stamina. He manages to keep up better than Alfred, at least, who trips and stumbles the whole way up the cliffside. Haplo has to help him more than once, and Bane wonders if the whole thing is an act to keep the Patryn off his guard. He still doesn’t really understand why Haplo would betray Grandfather for Alfred’s sake, though then again, Haplo is also currently traveling with a woman who was sent to kill him. Bane is familiar enough with adults doing stupid things for love.

He catches up to Marit, who has slowed her pace just enough to keep Haplo and Alfred in her sights. She seems surprised that he’s managed to keep up as well as he has. Bane, a little short of breath, offers her his most charming smile. She ignores him in favor of pressing forward into the forest.

* * *

When the tigermen arrive, Marit commands him to run, and he does, following her lithe form darting between trees. He manages to keep her in sight long enough to reach a line of archers. He ducks behind them, and as soon as he does, Marit grabs him. She pulls him against her side, both of them panting for breath, watching to see if the others make it.

They realize the strangeness of the gesture a second later. Bane blinks, and looks up just as the Patryn looks down, and her eyes are wide, like she’s seen a ghost. She shoves him away a second later.

Bane doesn’t usually think much about his clairvoyance. It gets boring after a while, and it doesn’t seem to work on Patryns and Sartan, anyway. Still, for just a brief moment, he wishes he could see what sort of specter is looming over Marit’s shoulder.

Hugh, Haplo, and Alfred return with the dog shortly after, and the thought vanishes from his mind.

* * *

That night, at their little makeshift campsite, Alfred tries to talk to him again. Bane can’t get away easily; he’s already ruled out trying to get Kari and her scouts on his side. They all seem unnerved by him, and Haplo drags him away before he can really try to speak to them, scolding him for drawing attention to himself.

He doesn’t want to talk to a traitor, a liar, an enemy, and he tells Alfred as much, and Alfred sighs heavily in that way that he does.

“I’m sorry, Bane,” he begins. Bane ignores him. Alfred doesn’t seem to mind. “You’re right, of course. You deserve to understand what happened.” In quiet tones, so that the other Patryns don’t overhear, he tells Bane everything. 

Alfred explains waking up, the last of his kind in a world that had forgotten who he was. Making his way to a powerful human ruler and worming his way into her court, half intentionally, half through dumb luck. Learning about the baby switch, and wanting to help in some small way. “Sinistrad was not a good man,” he says, and it’s one of the first things he’s said that Bane can agree with. Most of this part, Bane has already heard from reading Haplo’s report about Arianus, and he tells Alfred so.

Alfred nods, and explains that he and Iridal looked for him, after the fact. He’d met Haplo along the way, and learned that it was too late. Bane was already somewhere Alfred couldn’t go.

“I’m sorry,” Alfred says again, and the sorrow in his eyes seems genuine. “If I had only acted more quickly, taken you away when I had the chance… I know that Lord Xar is… not a kind man, either.”

Bane recalls interrogations, beatings, and the barest dregs of affection that Sinistrad hadn’t even bothered to feign. “He cares more than you ever did,” he mutters into his knees, curled up into his chest.

Again, Alfred apologizes. Bane doesn’t understand why, but that’s normal for the Alfred he remembers. He lets the man tuck Bane in like he used to, and by the time he remembers that isn’t the way of things anymore, it’s too late for him to protest it. 

* * *

Bane lies awake, looking up through treetops to the night sky. There is not much to do, no clever plan to get him back into an advantageous position. The Labyrinth is huge and frightening, but it does not allow for much scheming beyond basic survival.

Grandfather had told him that he goes into the Labyrinth sometimes, to rescue people. Maybe he will still find Bane. Marit might help him, in that-- Bane’s seen his mark on her forehead. But since that strange moment with the tigermen, she hardly even looks at him.

At least he can be assured that neither Alfred nor Marit will let him die. And at least he has the dog.

* * *

Marit comes through for him. She’s gotten the other three locked up, and the serpents have met them, and they know where Xar is. It’s looking up again, until Marit betrays them.

Bane’s eyes widen as Marit tells Vasu everything she heard. He begins creeping away, thinking to alert Sang-Drax, but Marit spots him, grabs him by his collar. He starts to scream, and she roughly forces a hand over his mouth.

“Shut up!” She glares at him “Didn’t you hear me? They will kill all of us.”

Bane reaches for her hand, and she lets him pull it aside. “They can’t kill me,” he declares. “And neither can you. Grandfather would be upset.”

Marit grimaces. The hand not grasping him reaches up to her forehead, where Xar’s mark sits. “Xar doesn’t care about you anymore, kid. You’ve outlived your purpose.”

_ She’s lying,  _ part of Bane insists. But he doesn’t believe it. Why should he? She’s right, and part of Bane has known it for a long time. Xar has no use for him, so why should he care what happens to him?

Marit looks down at him as Bane processes the new betrayal. She releases him, patting his shoulder awkwardly with the hand that had seized him. For a moment, she looks sorrowful, perhaps even sympathetic. But she schools her expression quickly. “We need to be ready to fight off the snakes when they come. Abri’s your best chance of getting out of this in one piece.” 

* * *

Marit is wrong about one thing, Bane thinks. There  _ is  _ a better way out, and all he has to do is wait.

He knows the serpents will come to him.

And they do.

And when they come to him, they laugh and laugh and laugh.

“You want us to help you, little princeling?” Sang-Drax says, green and red eyes glittering with delight. “But why would we? Our master didn’t ask us to help you. Our master sent us to destroy this city of enemies and traitors. Xar doesn’t need you. We certainly don’t.”   


“I can help you,” Bane counters, desperation coloring his words. “They’ve let me travel with them. I can be a spy!”

The serpents twist their greasy bodies, still laughing. “How are you going to spy on dead men in a dead city? When you yourself are dead with them?” Sang-Drax shakes his head. “You’ve never been anything but a pawn,” he whispers. “Surely you know this by now. Sinistrad was ever so clever, spawning a little tool for him to use, but he seems to have only produced something defective.” The snake smiles as Bane begins to tremble with rage. “Tell us, what is it that you’ve accomplished, exactly?” 

“You failed to capture Arianus.”

“You had to be rescued from Sinistrad after that embarrassing attempt at patricide.”

“You couldn’t overpower a few insignificant mensch, even with us all but holding your hand.”

The serpents’ voices echo from all around him, cruel laughter mixed in. Bane whips his head around, disoriented, wanting to say something, anything to prove them wrong. He can hardly see through the angry tears in his eyes.

“What use could anyone have for someone like you? Not Xar. Not Sinistrad. Not even your mother. After all, who would care for a tool that cannot fulfill its purpose?” The serpent’s eyes flash brightly. 

“And who would care if we simply killed you now?”

The dark serpent lashes forward, his jaws snapping wide open, and Bane is paralyzed where he stands.

And then large hands grab him, yank him away. Bane screams as Sang-Drax lashes out, but his strike misses Bane and his rescuer. Alfred’s voice is ringing in his ears, and he sees Hugh there with his knife, and Haplo and Marit usher them all away as the serpents fall back.

* * *

Bane whimpers to himself as the city scurries around him. There is to be a battle. Bane doesn’t care. He may as well die here, as far as he can tell. Sang-Drax was right.

Stephen had hated him. Sinistrad had tried to kill him. Iridal had abandoned him. Xar distains him, loves even Haplo better than him. No one in this city would care if he vanished from the spot.

“There’s a place in the mountains where they’re taking those who can’t fight.”

Oh. There is still Alfred, standing beside Bane on one of Abri’s walls, where he’s been overlooking the plains that will soon be a battlefield. Bane ignores his request. He doesn’t want to leave in the middle of all the action. The fighting’s all going to happen outside, anyway. And what would he even do, in some cave with a bunch of children and old people?

Alfred frowns. “I know you don’t want to listen to me, but please.” His hands flutter nervously. “I don’t think they expect to be able to hold the city,” he admits. “Please, Your-- Bane. This isn’t something to take lightly. If you stay here…” he pales. “Trust me, Bane. It’s safer if you go, now.”

“Why?” Bane snaps. “What do you  _ want  _ from me, Alfred? Why do you care?” After all that has happened to him, it feels good to yell. His breathing comes fast, and he stomps his foot. “Why do you even  _ need _ me?”

Alfred says nothing, his eyes wide with surprise. Bane glares up at him, waiting for the Sartan to respond so that he can yell at him more. His whole body is shaking.

“I guess I don’t,” Alfred says slowly, after a great deal of thought. Bane’s blood boils, and he opens his mouth, but Alfred holds up a hand and speaks over him. “We could have made it here, if you hadn’t arrived in the Vortex with the others. I guess this battle would have been fought, all the same. That’s true. When you put it like that, I suppose you’re right. I don’t need you. Not in the way you mean.” He shakes his head. “But you  _ are _ here, Bane. And I’m going to do what I can do to keep you safe from harm.”

“But  _ why? _ ” Bane demands. “You never cared before, why should you care what happens to me now?”

Alfred lowers his eyes. Despite the chaos all around them, the world feels still. When Alfred looks at him again, he looks pained.

“I did,” he says softly. “I cared for you, Bane. I care for you.”

Bane blinks, and feels wetness building in his eyes. “Liar,” he accuses, like a gasp for breath. “You’re a  _ liar,  _ Alfred. You left, like everyone else.”

Alfred bows his head. “I know,” he says, voice thick with shame. “I’m sorry. I was afraid. But I shouldn’t have done it. You needed me, needed someone. Maybe if I had taken you with me, instead…”

“You should have  _ helped  _ me!” Bane spits. “We could have beaten them, Haplo and my father, and--”

“And conquered Arianus?” Alfred finishes quietly. He pauses. “Would that have satisfied you, Bane?”

For once, Bane doesn’t know what to say. He wants to say yes, of course. It would be easy to say yes, and he might mean it, too, but for some reason, he can’t bring himself to say it.

Alfred’s expression shifts into a sad, pitying smile. “I want you to live,” he says. “I want you to have a chance to grow up. To… to find a way of living that’s built on something else, something besides the power you wield over others. There are other things, Bane. I always hoped… you would get to see that, someday.”

Alfred speaks earnestly, in that gentle voice of his, and some wayward part of Bane is drawn to the sound of it. But when he actually thinks about the words Alfred is saying, Bane can only frown.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“I know. I'm sorry." Alfred looks down at him, eyes full of a pity that Bane doesn't understand. He takes a breath. “If you go with them, I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that you do, someday.”

Bane looks over the side of the wall, down towards the monsters gathering below. He suddenly realizes that he feels more tired than he’s ever been in his life. He just wants to curl up somewhere and sleep and not think about any of this.

In the end, he decides to go with the Patryns towards the mountains.

* * *

The Patryns don’t outwardly reassure their children, but even when the heavy doors of the mountain fortress are shut, they remain near each other. Bane watches them, always a few steps apart, unsure what he should do. The Patryns watch over him, too, and they don’t seem to so much as blink when he pushes them away, saying he’s fine.

Eventually, some of the Patryn children venture to talk to him. They’re cautious, but they don’t seem all that afraid of him, merely curious. Bane has the sense that he’s being evaluated, and he does it best to make it clear to the tattooed children that he is not to be trifled with.

The Patryns take it in stride, talking back, poking and prodding. They’re clever, Bane thinks, and not at all like the children of the castle servants. It becomes clear that the leader of this bunch is a Patryn named Amzi, who is perhaps a year older than Bane himself.

The children talk for a while, and eventually they turn to playing a sort of game quietly amongst themselves. It isn’t that fun, really, because the others keep getting distracted, their parents’ nervousness contagious, but it’s something to do, at least. It’s been a long time since Bane played any kind of game, much less with other children.

It doesn’t take long until Bane isn’t the odd one out anymore. He hasn’t usurped Amzi, yet-- the flow of conversation passes between them, neither ever quite overpowering the other. Bane finds himself respecting the child, even, which is such an interesting development that he almost forgets about the battle being waged outside.

* * *

When Patryn hands eventually force him on dragonback, Bane doesn’t fight it. He almost does, stifled by any adult claiming authority over him, but the Patryn children all obey without question. There is a gravity about them that captivates Bane, a seriousness in their eyes. The ones who aren’t carrying a smaller child arm themselves with daggers. To them, these tasks are more than a game, and Bane refuses to lose face by seeming like he can’t keep up.

So Bane gets a dagger, too. He swishes it a few times in his hand, imagining a monster to slay. 

* * *

When the dragons land, the children are ushered to a hidden spot just outside the Final Gate. Their task is to defend the location, to keep quiet and prevent any monsters from finding the smaller children. Bane is more intrigued by the roar of the battle from not so far away, but Amzi calls him over quickly to help set traps, and Bane finds himself distracted again with a game unlike anything he’s ever played before.

Bane doesn’t have as much magic as even the other Patryn children, but he fancies himself cleverer than them, and learns quickly how to set up traps, making suggestions about where to put them. And when one of the traps catches a ferocious snog creeping through a hidden path that Bane had spotted, the others look at Bane triumphantly, and Amzi shows him how to use his dagger to help skin the beast.

* * *

The battle is over. Bane is bloody and tired and having a terribly marvelous time despite it all. None of the other Patryns smile, except small ones when the grown-ups come back. One of them, a tired-looking Patryn man, scoops Amzi up. He talks to them too quietly for Bane to hear, but then looks directly at him. He gives Bane a firm nod of respect.

Puffing out his chest, Bane nods back.

These Patryns aren’t like other adults Bane has known. They tell the children what to do, just like other adults, but there’s something different about it. Other adults tell children to keep quiet and stay out of the way. Or, in the case of a child as clever and talented as Bane, they try to use them to achieve their own ends. These Patryns are different; they trust their children to be capable. When they leave their children, they always come back, Amzi explains proudly. And when they teach them, it's to make sure they become strong enough to fight alongside them, someday. 

* * *

They leave their hideout to join the other Patryns, and that’s when Bane learns that the Sartan are here, and that they’re every bit as irritating as Grandfather had told him. Nothing at all like Alfred, bumbling and apologetic, these Sartan’s eyes are hard. They order the Patryns around, and when the Patryns refuse, the one called Ramu goes cold, his words turning threatening.

Bane sees the Patryn man push Amzi behind him slightly, his jaw clenched. Amzi is biting the inside of their cheek.

They’re scared, Bane realizes. He glares at the Sartan, whose robes are good as new, while the Patryns are all still tired from fighting. It isn’t at all fair, and Bane decides he isn’t going to put up with it.

He steps over and whispers his plan to Amzi. They hesitate, but at an urging look from Bane, they mutter the words to a simple illusion spell. Bane feels the ripple of magic surrounding him.

* * *

Ramu sees a young Patryn child walk out of the fray, hair solid brown, without the white tips that would appear with age. He’s a small child, but very handsome, with wide blue eyes. “Please don’t hurt us, sir,” the child says, a look of great fear on his face.

Ramu holds firm, but behind him, he can sense the guilt creeping into the hearts of the other Sartan. The child’s eyes are perfectly angelic, the expression of a true innocent, naive to the unfortunate reality of warfare.

It is an act that the child has employed a thousand times before: never for anyone's benefit except his own. But Ramu doesn't know that.

On that day, the ploy is enough to avoid a fight. The Patryns relax, just slightly, and Bane receives several pats on his shoulder from Patryns who still look tired and worried. Part of Bane thinks that they ought to show a little more gratitude than that, but then Amzi waves Bane over and invites him to help find wood for a fire.

Bane’s never lit a fire before. He forgets his grumblings and rushes off to help them set up a proper campsite.

* * *

That’s where Alfred finds him, curled up in a heap with the rest of the Patryn kids. Bane grumbles to be woken up, but listens to Alfred explain a bunch of things he’s already pieced together for himself, like the fact that the Final Gate is blocked off. They’ll be here a while.

“I’ll take care of you,” Alfred promises. “Whatever happens, you won’t be alone.”

Bane considers his old chamberlain. He  _ was _ lying before, Bane decides. He  _ does  _ need Bane. Whatever it is that makes him apologize all the time, he needs Bane to soothe that guilt, somehow.

Bane scowls, but finds none of it makes him as angry as it did, before. He's fine with being needed, even if it is for a reason he doesn't understand. It's a much stronger position than the alternative. But that doesn't mean he's going to just follow along with Alfred, or anyone else, now that he's free to do what he likes.

“I don’t need you to take care of me, Alfred. I handled myself just fine, you see?”

“I heard.” Alfred looks at the pile of Patryn children, many of whom have woken up. But their parents are keeping a cautious eye on the Sartan, and so they keep quiet, too. “I’m sure they were grateful for your help. You have always been very clever.”

“Of course,” Bane agrees easily. And then explains how Amzi knows all sorts of things, and how they’re going to teach Bane to cook food on the fire tomorrow, among other things. “They know how to fight, too. They’re going to teach me, so we can guard Senna-- she’s an actual baby, you know, she can’t even crawl yet.”

Bane is intrigued by Senna. He’s never been allowed to be around an infant before. She doesn’t do much, besides be round and squishy and sometimes cry. But the others are nothing if not determined to watch over her, and their earnestness about the task makes it a bit more intriguing.

Alfred nods. Hesitant. But when he smiles, it doesn't seem as sad as Bane remembers. "They'll need your help, then," he agrees. 

He tells Bane where he’ll be, in case Bane changes his mind, or needs him, and that he’ll come and see how Bane is doing tomorrow, and Bane rolls his eyes, because clearly Alfred still thinks he’s a child. 

Bane is still angry with him, a little. Maybe he always will be. But he thinks it might not be the worst thing to have Alfred around. And Alfred  _ had _ come back for him, this time. So maybe he’ll come see him, if he gets too bored, and as long as Haplo isn’t around. But he doesn’t think he’ll be bored for a while, in a place like this. He tells Alfred as much, his eyes drooping as he begins to fall back to sleep. And Alfred smiles, and nods, and tucks Bane in as carefully as he always had, and says that sounds just lovely.

**Author's Note:**

> Bane is a VERY tricky character to write, as it turns out. I'm honestly not super satisfied with this, but a friend and I were talking about his potential to become better if he hadn't died, and this is at least one route I thought of, for that kind of thing.
> 
> His relationship with Alfred has the potential to be super compelling, too, and I kind of wish I had ended up with more of it, here. In this case, I think there's something to the idea of Bane just needing to start over with a completely new kind of life and completely new people. And I kind of like the idea that like with Haplo/Marit and Rue, maybe the choices Alfred made with Bane can't ever truly be fixed, but that doesn't mean he can't do anything or that it was all in vain.
> 
> I dunno. There are just so many ways it could go that could have made for a great Bane arc! And while I don't think I particularly did the concept justice, it's worth it if it makes anyone else think about it for a moment!
> 
> You can find me at [deathgatesideblog.tumblr.com!](deathgatesideblog.tumblr.com)


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